Category: Internet

Partly because I have been hurt by so many inhuman people in my life – and partly because I am so often inhuman myself. However, the fact remains that I am human – whether I like it or not. And like countless others – I have to accept that.

The artists of the world have always worked with this – to create the world’s great art, and some of its not-so-great also. I am not an artist, but I am a writer, a blogger – and one of the Computer’s blessings is to let people like me blabber on – and not only that – to save what we write on the Computer Cloud!

Now everything is saved forever – even private things we would rather keep to ourselves. Previously, we worried about things getting lost. Now we have to worry about nothing being lost.

We can to search through the dregs (very easily!) to find the things we want. Being aware, however – that lots of stuff is carefully being kept from us.

And they are proud of this – when, in my opinion, they should be ashamed of it.

But I must clarify where I am coming from. It seems to me that people are now mostly unconsciously motivated. This has always been the case – the unconscious part of our minds run nearly everything – our bodies and our social lives.

This is what every child learns without thinking about it. At first we can’t do much more than suck and shit – but we learn fast. Although this learning process takes years of our young lives. With adults acting as teachers – and where the quality of this teaching varies enormously.

Gradually, we develop a conscious mind, capable of thinking about our world. This is what makes us human, and sets us apart from the other animals – whose consciousness (and ability to think) is only rudimentary.

All this assumed that people were responsible for their world – and in control of it – what else could be?

Here is where I want to pick up the thread of my argument. And note that people no longer believe this. They may claim to be in charge of their lives – and even use sailing terminology to express this “I am the captain of my ship!”

But as anyone can clearly see – they watch Television, and take most of their clues from it. They are controlled by it – and consider this perfectly normal. This control is subtle – but all the more powerful because it is.

The basic fact is that something else controls their lives – and not them. What this something else is – varies a great deal. But is basically derived from Religion. And people’s powerful need to be part of something greater than themselves – in traditional Christian terms – God – or in Evangelical terms – Jesus.

But as someone who grew up in a rapidly changing world, the last half of the last century – something else was in control. Something we could detect intuitively, but could not put into worlds. And indeed, were forbidden to put into words. This allowed it to stay in our collective unconscious – and control us completely.

If questioned about this, people would say “I don’t want to think about it!” They knew the cardinal rule for their time – Do not think about this! They can think about trivial things only – not important things.

What was the important thing? Intellectuals, and they are still plenty of them, will give you long answers, and these are often valuable. But there is a simpler answer, which anyone can experience for themselves – and which indeed, they are forced to experience for themselves – the Business World, and the ultimate expression of this – the Global Economy. Which is enabled by the Computer and its Internet.

There must be a ton of books written on this subject – or ones close to it. It’s not considered polite to talk about insanity directly – but I have the luxury of doing so – safe in my bedroom in Costa Rica – wearing my pajamas, and hiding behind my computer – that has a fast connection to the Internet.

I get to see all this insanity long-distance – which is a considerable advantage. I have a wealth of opportunities to do so – the world seems to be banging on my door (on my inbox, actually) eager to tell me all about it.

I keep thinking of how Costa Rica could pull itself up by its bootstraps – by becoming adept at this new technology. But unfortunately, this will never happen. The gap between the developed world and the undeveloped world (which could be closed so easily) will continue to widen.

There is good reason to worry about the way in which our digital lives are being shaped by regulators, politicians serving powerful constituencies , and companies seeking to maximize profit. The potential for manipulation and abuse of the digital networks and platforms that citizens have come to depend upon is one of the more insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age. If citizens of established democracies cannot prevent such manipulation, the prospects for aspiring and fragile democracies in Tunisia and Egypt, let alone hopes for the future in places like Iran and China, look much less bright.

It is a reality of human nature that those with power, however benign or even noble their intentions, will do what they can to keep it. The American revolutionaries certainly understood this truth. As James Madison, one of the framers of the Constitution, observed near the end of his life in an 1829 speech before the Virginia Constitutional Convention, “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” This was their fundamental assumption as they formed new institutions of the world’s first democratic republic.

In the physical world, mechanisms of democratic politics and constitutional law have worked— not perfectly, but still far better than any alternatives—to protect citizens’ rights. But these mechanisms are no longer adequate for people whose physical lives now depend on what they can or cannot do (and what others can do to them) in the new digital spaces where sovereignty and power are ill-defined and highly contested. The reality is that the corporations and governments that build, operate, and govern cyberspace are not being held sufficiently accountable for their exercise of power over the lives and identities of people who use digital networks. They are sovereigns operating without the consent of the networked.
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Most people will not be bothered by this. It is too complicated for them to understand, they think – and assume that this complication will somehow protect them.

But other people have made it their business to understand it very well – and their services are for sale to the highest bidder.

Click on either of these links – if you want to know what is really going on. The Internet can be a treasure-trove – if you know how to carefully pick your way through it – carefully avoiding the mine-fields.

I was one of the people once who were lying those mine-fields – with trip-wires all over the place. But our mines were a special type – what he calls Investor Storytimes. We weren’t fishing for the small fish – but for the big ones, with tons of money. We told them:
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“We can make you rich! And it will only cost you a few million dollars. But in return, you will make billions. And you couldn’t possibly lose.” And then we would show they how they couldn’t possible lose. Which was nothing but a fancy shell game – where the sucker could not follow the pea around fast enough. But thought he could.
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It always looked like it would work – and at first it did. Until the word got around, and we went belly-up.

I have friends back in Silicon Valley who went from startup to startup – always hoping to grab that brass-ring – but missing it every time.

I have been reading lots of hype about the Internet of Things – and now I have one of the damn things.

I made it through the user’s manual without too much trouble – and the camera (which makes photos and movies) seems to be working fine. But the Wi-Fi part of the manual is much thicker. It tells me how my camera can connect to everything – the Internet, a smart phone, another camera, a computer, or a printer.

But why on earth should I want to do that? I have trouble enough understanding the two cloud services I use already – Amazon Cloud Drive and Google Drive. They also promise to do everything for me – but in practice they have strange limitations – ones they do not explain very well.

They just want to say “It’s wonderful, it’s wonderful – and you gotta have it!” When in fact they only want to use you.

Beware of strangers offering gifts – claiming the only want to be your friends. Do not let them in your gates.